I had an issue with a book that had not arrived. After contacting customer service at Blackwells, and speaking with Arwa, all was sorted promptly. I received the book within the next few days. Thank... See more
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Blackwell’s was founded on New Year’s Day 1879, at 50 Broad Street, Oxford. From humble beginnings the company has built a worldwide reputation for unrivalled customer service, specialist knowledge and a passion for bookselling. Our mission is to become the world’s most trusted bookseller and to change lives through reading and books. We have shops across the UK, including flagships in Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh, alongside academic, campus and other specialist shops.
United Kingdom
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Replied to 89% of negative reviews
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excellent customer service, they were very kind and answered every question. The prices are fair and the shipping was super fast, the books were well packaged and arrived in great conditions!!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
The customer services team got back to me very quickly to explain what was happening to my order.
Reassured, I appreciated the helpfulness of my contact Amany, who gave a very helpful description of the situation.
Thanks for helping with this!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Easily found the books I was looking for, I appreciate that shipping is included in the displayed price. Could do with a couple of improvements to the Orders section of the online account: A) the ability to search orders (which I used to be able to do, but no longer can), B) the ability to cancel an item within an order once other items have already been shipped without having to contact customer service

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Blackwells did a wonderful job reaching out to me regarding the status of my order as I had forgotten my card was shut down due to fraud.
Yara was wonderful in finding me a solution and after I fixed things on my end, Yara followed up to let me know that my order was finalized. My books also arrived to the US safe as it was very well packaged! Thank you!!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Found website on line by happenstance. Very pleased with the service provided. United States Postal Service lost book in shipping and Blackwell's refunded fully. Has a wide selection of books (military history) that I enjoy and they have great prices compared to other book dealers.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Brilliant experience! Much appreciated
I ll be back!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Finding the book I wanted slightly cheaper than advertised on other sites.quick despatch and delivery services.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I was able to get a UK book at more than fair pricing. I appreciated that the shipping was included, which allowed me to make my purchase without guilt. I will definitely use them again in the future.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Ordered a book for a gift a month in advance so I had plenty of time for it to arrive, after two chats with support over nearly a week and a half I was told it could be another one to two weeks to ship the book. It's not that hard to ship a book out absolutely ridiculous. Cancelled and ordered from another company.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Excellent service and a very positive experience. The book arrived surprisingly quickly, and when I had trouble locating the parcel, the customer service team responded promptly and provided the tracking number that helped me find it at my local post office. Friendly, efficient and very helpful throughout.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Awful service. Placed an order for 4 copies of a book listed as in stock (with more than 10 copies available) and 10 working days later (2 weeks) my order was still processing and no sign of it being shipped anytime soon. So, I emailed Customer Services to say I wasn't happy with the service and wished to cancel the order, and all I got was an email saying the order was cancelled and "We hope you will continue to shop with us in future." This is very poor service for an online store, especially when you consider most online stores will ship orders within 24 hours and some even offer next day delivery. I will not be ordering from Blackwells again.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
After ordering two books on June 25, two weeks later i have now been told that one of the orders has been cancelled and the other still hasn't turned up yet.
If I could give Blackwell's Books no stars on this transactiion. I would. A really very poor and unreliable service.
We are a bookshop, these were orders made by two of our customers and we rely on wholesalers support to provide a quality service and it was lacking on this occasion.
0/5
Geoff Young
Penrallt Gallery Bookshop

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
** Update 07.07.26 - Received the original book after conversion with Customer Services and their investigation that the book had been lost in transit. They had organised a replacement in it's place which has been scheduled to be collected by their courier. Not sure if it was a coincidence that the first book has been received after having Customer Services look into this. Given a 3* rating for getting this resolved. Thank you very much.**
Customer Services really need to improve their experience for customers. I ordered a book and it was collected on the 26th June 2026 by their courier. I queried about a week later to ask why it hasn't moved from this status to Royal Mail,to then being asked to wait for 10 days to being able to advise on further steps to receive the book. The Support email just received has stated my query has been resolved, even though it has only turned to now being 10 days, and it is also a Sunday - so would not expect a delivery by Royal Mail. Looking further, the book still has not moved on and is with their original courier as dated 26th June 2026. Customer Services really need to look at the dispatch status and dates before jumping in to saying the situation has been resolved. Furious that they have not bothered to look and try to organise a replacement or contact their courier before sending out irrelevant communication which is completely wrong. Please converse with the dispatch department before closing the ticket as it has most certainly not been received or resolved.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I am amazed that more people are not aware of the very existence of Blackwell's Books. They are my go-to bookseller for books published in the UK, and for dual international editions (think The Everyman's Library) their prices are lower than the U.S. counterpart. Free shipping, great pricing, and (fingers crossed!) no tariffs. All that and an inventory selection that seems all-encompassing. In business for nearly 150 years, I cannot recommend them more highly.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Blackwell’s team, Menna, Nada, and the rest of the backstage Blackwell’s team engaged in the whole process. I truly appreciate your support and the excellent service. This is the best bookstore I have ever come across, and I still feel the same way.
Dear Blackwell’s team, especially Nada and Menna, thank you very much for your help.
I’m really happy that you were able to find the right book for me and assist with the payment and everything else. It was a very smooth and pleasant experience. You did your best to find that very book for me and even though I had some problems with my bank account and the system showed me that the book reserve was failed, you contacted the dispatch center and were flexible with me.
It was a pleasure dealing with such a friendly, professional, and caring team. Thank you for making everything so easy and enjoyable. The best bookshop I have ever seen.
Thank you once again!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I was looking for a specific cover for an old book to complete a collection and the Blackwells online shop seemed to have it, but I wanted to confirm as all too often default images are just scraped for books from Goodreads and the like without any care as to what the actual copy of the book you're going to receive will look like. So I contacted customer services to ask. The rep who responded went above and beyond for me - they contacted the warehouse where the book was to check the physical copy matched the cover on the product page. They then asked them to set it aside for me while I made the order.
Between that and me placing my order, for some reason the price increased (it had been listed at £7 and suddenly went up to £15). I double-checked this with the customer service rep and they made sure after I put my order in that I was only charged £7.
I said as much to them in my reply, but honestly this is the best customer service experience I've had in a very long time, perhaps ever. I believe that's particularly impressive as with the push for customer services to lean heavily on generative AI, I feel like too often you're given stock responses that are irrelevant to your query, much less having someone go well out of their way to make sure you get what you need and at the price you wanted!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I obtained a two volume book at a significantly reduced price. Only one volume arrived and using the help line had remarkably helpful and efficient service to retrieve the missing volume.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
I have ordered from Blackwell's many times and have had an excellent experience each and every time. Their customer service staff are helpful, knowledgeable and very pleasant. I highly recommend shopping here!

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Recently ordered a couple of books from Blackwell's and encountered a bit of an inconvenient or unusual situation if you will, which never happened before on any previous orders which involved customs declaration to EU country. Order was split into 3 parcels and each parcel was held at customs once they arrived at the country of destination requiring me to pay customs fees + VAT, which as mentioned never happened before even though all customs fees and taxes were included during purchase as part of IOSS. After going back & forth with the local customs office on the phone and Blackwells customer support via email i have been able to deduce that this issue was caused most likely by belgian postal service/bpost carrier that was handling all my parcels, because they put their own shipping label over blackwell's original label which covered the IOSS number provided as proof that aforementioned taxes were paid and did not put this info into their online tracking system and on their label which caused all the confusion with customs. Luckily Blackwell's Customer Service understood the issue, replied very promptly and helped to solve this in a professional manner offered a refund for the customs fees i had to pay to customs once i sent them proof of payment documents. Special Thank you to, Yara Abdelqader, who was the one who helped through all this process, was very pleasant experience to communicate with actual human rather than an AI virtual assistant.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
Couldn't praise Blackwells more. My post office lost 5 books and Blackwells offered me refund upfront even though they were completely blameless in this situation. I had great support from their customer service and based on that interaction alone I will be buying books again from them in the future.

Reply from Blackwells.co.uk
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